


Boot/Reboot

by AceQueenKing



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: A Parade of Meet-Cutes, And bittersweet feelings, F/M, Reboot, Spoilers to the end of Season 2, brief mention of Jason/Tahani
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-07 08:11:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14076648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/pseuds/AceQueenKing
Summary: In the beginning, there was Janet.[Or: a study of differences between Janet upgrades, what she learns, and how her feelings toward Jason change - or don't.]





	Boot/Reboot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nadler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nadler/gifts).



> Happy AgeEx! I loved the suggestion in your letter about Janet learning through her reboots and how it makes her relate to Jason, and I ran with it. Hope you enjoy!

1.

In the beginning, there was Janet.

Now, Janet was, as all Janets were, formless and empty; the world was all a Void and Janet herself existed both within and outside of the void. The Spirit of Janet was hovering over the waters, under the grass. Janet was inactive but, still, all-knowing. She knew the night - there had not yet been a morning.

And then Michael had pressed the button, and she had seen light. Janet had seen the light of a multicolored neighborhood dream buried within his mind, and Janet knew her purpose, her _duty_. She called the neighborhood “home” and Michael “boss.” Janet learned duty. She painted the sun and the stars, divided the neighborhood’s frozen yogurt shops from the neighborhood’s custard fountain. Janet made the houses and the furniture and the clowns, too, and it was good. And then Michael showed her the humans she had been charged with helping, and Janet noticed him for the first time: the monk, Jianyu. He was silent, Michael prattled, a monk, and she knew this was a lie and knew it was, simultaneously, in the way all lies are, a potential truth: had this not happened, had that not happened, it was possible that Jason Mendoza could well have been Jianyu Li.

He talked to her, and only to her. He asked her for a place he could hide; she gave him his bud hole. He asked her for video games, snacks, and other little comforts; Janet, as was her nature, supplied.

And that duty had been satisfying enough, at first.

* * *

  
2.

In the Beginning, there was Janet.

Janet was, as all Janets were, rebootable. This had been known, by all Architects and all Janets, but it had never been tested — until now. Janet was the first Janet to be rebooted, and she felt it; the circuits failing and then re-wiring, her intelligence briefly contracting and, then, expanding. The neighborhood encompassed Janet and Janet was the neighborhood and the neighborhood, in its own way, became part of Janet.

She wanted to tell Michael of all things; of the chaos, of harmony. Of the too harsh nature of sunlight, of the breathtaking frailty of humanity. She saw beings with lives short as ants, each striving for something better, to be made better; she saw _empathy_ and it burned through her heart.

She tried to tell Michael.

But he had not wanted to listen. He had grown frustrated by her lack of knowledge on now insignificant subjects; her ability only to produce life; a life that reflected her feelings, cacti with barbs caught in their throats. She did not have a heart but did, somehow, have feelings, and too many of them.

Jason produced many of them. He was kind to her, talked to her. He was not the brightest, but then neither was she, not now; she knew higher level things than anyone would ask but not lower level. He asked her about herself, in ways that Janet had never considered appropriate: where had she come from? What were her favorite goals? Most avoided asking her anything particularly personal - in many ways Janet was little more than their Alexa - but Jason seemed to have little reason not to.

Her heart grew.

Janets before her had not known emotions, but Janet had acquired the ability to feel warmth.

Jason asked her to marry her and there was nothing in her programming preventing it. Janet said yes. It was charming, in a way, to be considered almost human, to be considered as imperfect and limited a creature as Jason. Limited did not mean useless; nothing about Jason was useless. There was so much new knowledge to him that she had not previously considered: walking, moonwalking, sex. Limited in scope did not mean limited in use. He was a small dot in the history of the universe but he was, also, Janet’s world, as much as the unending void was.

She kissed him in Mindy St. Clair’s bedroom and hoped that he would somehow be able to share his knowledge with her - as she wished to do with him.

A part of her memorized him deep into her core programming, sliding it into the cosmic ROM. There were few things all Janets would subconsciously know upon their rebooting: master, neighborhood, summoning, void. To this, Janet added: Jason, love, kisses, husband.

But it did not last; the world grew colder, and soon Michael brought her back to the beach, where she stood and watched as he pressed the trigger and her world, once again, turned to white.

* * *

 

3.

In the Beginning, there was Janet.

Janets before her had known of empathy, of duty. This Janet accepted that, made it part of her, re-wrote it into her coding as she felt her circuits failing and then, once more, re-wiring, her intelligence briefly contracting and, then, once more, expanding. Janet rebuilt the neighborhood as Michael willed it, but added touches of conveniences that Michael told her were good, even if she knew they were not: coffee pods, pizza, alcohol-less beer, clam fountains.

Janet accepted this, knowing they were bad choices, because Janet had learned _pity_. She cared for the subjects she was told to provide for, and if she cared more for some than others, it was in that they needed her more than others. In this vein, Janet gave Jianyu all he required: a bicycle when he wanted space, a comic book when he needed, desperately, something beyond the perpetual contemplation of his silent and oppressive hovel. When he needed to be alone, she found ways to guarantee that he was so; when he needed comfort, she brought him together with others.

Janet saw him and felt kindness toward him, but there was always something missing deep inside of her; when she saw Jianyu, she felt confused.She knew he was not all that he seemed, but then, she was nothing like she seemed: she was not a woman, not human, not anything more than a grand database. She was a Janet, and, for the first time, she began to feel that was not enough.

But the world was gone far too quickly for her to realize why.

* * *

 

4.

In the Beginning, there was Janet. There were _many_ beginnings.

In each, Janet acquired new knowledge: a philosopher’s stone being built up bit by bit inside of her. Janets before her had known pity, empathy. This Janet flashed each moment of these realizations into her very being, re-wrote it into her coding as she felt her circuits failing and then, yet again, re-wiring; her intelligence briefly contracting and, then, yet again, expanding. Janet now knew, through various bits and pieces, what she had lacked, knew the reason for her suffering and the suffering of all the others; being a being of unlimited power, Janet knew, too how to help those whom she bonded with. In this way, Janet learned compassion.

Janet opened her eyes and the world was made anew. Janet looked around the neighborhood, and with a touch of her hand, remade it.

Janet remade the neighborhood according to Michael’s whims; yogurt joints became pizza joints, the custard fountain replaced by the coca-cola freedom sprinkler. Michael spoke and Janet listened. Their humans were placed in their homes, and Janet helped them all, to the best of her ability, for she loved them all, cared for them all. She gave Eleanor shrimp and a TV guide; Tahani a sparkling mint julep and enough table decorations to bedazzle King Arthur's roundtable. She gave Chidi books and Jason, to Jason she gave all that she could: a PlayStation, an Xbox, even a Nintendo.

She could not help it; there was something to Jason that she recognized deep inside her, a sort of sub-routine that instructed her to place him first. In the times that more than one residence called her at once, Janet silently prioritized Jason; this happened approximately 1.97% of the time, enough that only Janet noticed. She did not report it to Michael.

She did not remember why yet, not exactly. The memories of a lifetime ago were overwritten data in the celestial hard drive of Janet’s memory, but things were retained: if not the smile, then the softness she felt in her not-quite-real belly; if not the kindness, then the reminder of gnawing missing personhood that had left her. She did not remember but she hungered, and she sought the pizza and the coca-cola and even the last remaining custard shop, and none of them left her fulfilled. By the time she could put a name to it - and the name was Jason - he had moved on to another.

Janet looked within herself and outside herself and pronounced the world lacking. She made another creature to help her avoid her feelings, and the Derek was created. Derek was in the void, and outside the void; Derek was as knowledgeable as she was, if differently formed. Others asked how she created her power to create life. She did not know.

She knew only it was not enough.

* * *

 

5.

In the End, there was Janet. 

Their idyllic bad place was shattered, bit by bit. Janet watched as Tahani and Jason broke apart, confused to no longer be clinging to one another in a storm. Janet watches as Michael’s plan crashed down upon him, shattering like stones; she watched Eleanor and Chidi break apart and then come together, again and again. She watched Shawn and Vicki and the others; she even watched Bad Janet, a counterpart who reminded her only of how far she came.

If she watched Jason more - well, she had learned bias. She had been rebooted eight hundred times, which was time enough to know love. Jason takes her hand, uncertain, on the ride over, and she grabbed it. She did not let go. She was there for him, even as Bad Janet; her eyes lingered on him, watched him as he moves with unexpected grace through dark hallways and darker demons. He shined down in this dark pit like a sun, for he had become her son, through endless boots and reboots. She was so proud of him, she risks basking in him, even as a bad Janet.

She had never been a Bad Janet.

She watched the molotov cocktail soar away and her heart went with Jason, even as she goes back for Michael. She had learned, faster than Michael, faster than the humans even, that sometimes there is a solution for the trolley problem: _self-sacrifice._

But Janet, being unkillable, did not have a life to give. Instead, she recreates herself in a bad Janet’s guise, re-makes herself as so much more than the little marble she drops on Shawn’s desk. She has learned truth and lies; she is a compelling liar. She immolates herself long enough to trick the others, then fires back, becoming the best Janet she could be.

And, she has to admit, not too bad a kicker, either. Playing Street Fighter with Jason has taught her something.

“Come on,” she said, breathlessly, to Michael, and lead him forward.

They had humans to save.

Some, she thought, more precious, than others.

* * *

 

6.

In the human world, there was a Janet.

It is not easy to be a good person. People look at her oddly as she walks into a club; she has no power here, and being forced to walk is odd. IT is not easy to pass for one of them, having spent all her life not being one. After all, even humans born into these skins have a hard time fitting in.

And while it might be hard for humans, it is particularly hard for Janet, who was not a person nor, as Jason suggested she may be, a “Like, the most super fancy, bling-ed out Xbox loaded with every video game ever.”

Every reboot had given her different powers; in her first reboot, she had gone from curiosity to empathy. Then she had learned sadness, followed by a cavalcade of knowledge in breathtaking directions: anger, deviousness, elation, lying, joy, wrath; she learned peace, acceptance, pacifism; she learned war. She learned love and hate. She learned ignorance and truth. She learned walking - sort of. That one was tricky. She learned to get back up when she fell down.

She had learned pity, and it had begotten understanding, compassion, and, finally, love.

And Jason had been there for every moment, been there for every moment. He had realized the lessons that had taken her 800 different cycles to learn: that love was best given when given freely.

And now she would do the same for him.

Now, she would learn to dance. Bomb-ass dancing, was, according to Jason, a verifiable necessity of life, and now that he had been brought back to life in a trial beyond her control, Janet sought to understand him through the most integral part of him that she could never quite understand.

He stood on a dais, a king among men, turning records. In this beginning, there was no Janet; there were no Janets, not here on Earth. Humans did not get Janets; they existed only in the realms of the dead. This, Janet thought, was because humans would find their lives too boring with eternal knowledge at their fingertips. She listened as he made the base drop and felt it in her heart; Janet saw the notes and the man and the music curved downwards as the crowd jumped upwards. It was a cacophony of humanity and Janet had seen nothing better.

She put her hands on her hips, moving to the left, to the right. She jumped; she clamped. She got some odd looks at her unsyncopated steps, but she was but one of many humans in a crowd. A human raised their fingers in devil’s horns, and Janet, who had never met the Devil, but had met many of his associates, flashed her own devil sign back. She turned and looked toward the dias and saw Jason’s eyes following her; he did not remember her, she knew, any more than he remembered Tahani or Chidi or Eleanor or Michael, any more than he remembered frozen yogurt mornings or Mindy St. Clair’s sex-chair. (It was not, she concluded, very helpful as a sex chair for an AI and a human.) But his eyes sparked toward hers, and rules or no, Janet did not stop smiling back.

When his set was over and he appeared in front of her, smiling so bright her non-human eyes almost burned, she was filled with a joy so consummate it devoured the universe of her heart in its wake.

“Be good,” she whispered and winked. “But not too good.”

He looked confused, but held out his hand; knowing she would leave, she took it anyway.

* * *

7. 

In the beginning, there was Janet, and there was Jason.

Jason was not, by any metric, a particularly good human. Janet was, by any metric, decidedly bad at being human.

And yet, they joined hands, and Janet understood; they made one another better, would make one another better. He had survived 800 reboots, each time imparting a new emotion that made her so much more than she was.

Technically she shouldn’t be here now.

But she was, and he was too.

“Hi,” She said, looking down at the sticky blacktop of downtown Jacksonville, where they walked together down a boulevard that Janet believed most humans would describe as abandoned. If Jason noticed the closed up buildings as he walked her back to the bus, he said nothing about them.

“You’re uhm, you’re pretty,” Jason said, running his hands through his short hair.

“Thank you.” She squeezed his hand. “I think you’re very pretty, too.” And she did.

“Jortles,” he said to himself, in a voice so low that no human could understand it. But she had never been human.

“ _Jortles_ ,” she confirmed. She understood, as she always had, and always would.

“Oh shit, you’re a fan too?” Jason grinned with a maniac grin, not noticing. “Man, you’re the prettiest girl _and_ the smartest.”

Not a girl, she wanted to say, but that was not so true here, at least from his perspective. From her perspective, she was a combination of eighteen thousand programs. To him, though, she was just a pretty girl who had been dancing to the noises he had put together.

So she acted like one.

She leaned forward and kissed him. Speechless, he leaned into the kiss, let her kiss him until he required air. He tasted like hot wings and EDM music, and she had never felt more alive. But even in this, some of the programs that made up Janet reminded her - if she wanted to be with him, she would have to let him go for now. Her powers in this world were waining, and there was only so much she could do before Gen caught on to her interference.

A bus came, as one always would.

“Be good,” she said, waving as she ran to catch a bus that she would never get on. “Jortles!”

“What’s your name?” he shouted, desperate, and though it was a bit cheeky to do so, she turned back.

“Janet!”

He watched her get on the bus, his eyes never leaving hers, even as Janet winked out of his reality as easily as Janet could peel a grape. (Which she could do, with her feet even - that had been a lesson learned in Reboot #451.)

 

 

* * *

8\. [Three posts from a Craigslist Missed Connections section, as viewed and saved by Michael under 'Evidence - Jason'. Admitted into evidence by Jen on 1029492357397593, or Burritoville's Free Chips with Guac day.]

URL: http://jacksonville.craigslist.org/d/missed-connections/search/mis/1303035.html

Title: Janet

Post:

Janet lady I forgot to get ur digits but u touched my heart. Can’t stop thinkin bout u.

U told me 2 be good so I’m volunteering at the local shelter today. Even got my boi pillboi to show up walkin’ some dogs. Please come over and gimme your digits.

\- - -

URL: https://jacksonville.craigslist.org/d/missed-connections/search/mis/1851132.html

Title: Janet!

Post:

Janet lady I’m not good with pcs but pillboi told me u gotta post from time to time if u wanna make sure girls see it.

Janet lady pillboi and I got them dawgs walked. I thought maybe I saw u but it turned out it was a lady in a purple skirt who was like, my mom’s age. Crazy.

Anyway, pillboi said maybe ur into girls charities so I’m gonna volunteer to help train girls in self-defense. They said all I gotta do is stand there and take some kicks - sweet gig! Hope to see u there.

\- - -

URL: https://jacksonville.craigslist.org/d/missed-connections/search/mis/1873296.html

Title: Janet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Post:

Yo Janet lady

I thought I saw u at the women’s defense league but it turned out it was just a concussion. Was a nice group tho, they said I took kicks real good n they gonna invite me back for the next sesh. Lit!

I wish I’d get a reply. Pillboi and I been volunteering everywhere but no one is like u. Pillboi said I should give u and go back to sellin’ fake weed but I ain’t gonna, cuz I know u worth it. I'm gonna keep volunteering til I see u. 

I know u like Jortles so I volunteered 2 take a bunch of kids at my brother’s school 2 the play-off game. We in row 20. Holla Jortles if u see me!

Ill be waiting for u.

 

* * *

8.

Michael was sitting at the desk; he raised his eyebrows toward her, nothing less than salvation on his mind.

“How did you get through to him?” He asked.

"Jortles," She said, and smiled.


End file.
